In-depth

Having released great house and techno records for over a decade, French producer and DJ Alexkid knows what elements go into a good track - and a few tricks to make good tracks even better. Alex has poured a little bit of that know-how into his 'Instant Haus' Max for Live device, which is not only fun right out of the box, but can also be used to inspire some big results.

The Instant Haus Device

'Instant Haus' is a beat generator optimized for house music. It contains a number of house patterns and comes with a Drum Rack full of kick, snare, hi-hats and percussion samples, all of which you can instantly mix-and-match. Alex also added a number of parameters that let you modify the patterns in immediately musical ways.

Using Instant Haus

The Pattern and Note knobs let you change each drum's pattern or sample individually. Each drum also has velocity range controls which can expand or constrain the playback velocity.

For even more flexibility, you can use MIDI notes to adjust the various parameters, allowing you to "play" the pattern changes and/or transpositions in real-time. The Shift and Swing controls, for example, allow you to add short delay and subtle timing variations to each drum.

Finally, pressing one of the Random buttons immediately dials in a new pattern, transposition, swing, shift or velocity setting, for an endless number of possibilities.

Although the included samples are perfect for house music, you can create your own signature sound by using the Instant Haus device with your own Drum Racks.